I don't want to hear even one person go on about how it's not necessary to have summer anymore because summer used to be for the kids to work on the farm and no one lives on farms anymore. What is that on your plate at lunch? Could it, or its ingredients, have come from, oh maybe, a farm?

(And while Iím on the topic Ė it kind of ticks me off to hear people talk about raising the minimum age for a driverís license; how do you think people get around out in the country? Not everyone has access to public transportation and not every parent wants to have to endlessly drive their teenagers everywhere when, theoretically, they should be able to do so themselves. If your sixteen year old canít be trusted to drive, well, donít give them the car. If your eighteen year old is just learning to drive, they will make the same driving errors all beginners do, regardless of whether they learn at sixteen or eighteen or thirty. As the smallest member of the family, and thus the least useful at toting hay bales, at 10 years old I used to often be the designated driver of the tractor and I did a damn fine job, if I do say so myself. But I digress. Boy, do I digressÖ)

Even if you donít live in a rural area, think back to when you were a kid Ė summers were sacred! Summers were freedom and swimming and air on your skin and fudgesicles. When you finally had to start earning your own money, summers were that necessary chunk of time to get a demeaning, low-paying, character-building job in order to amass cash to carry you through the rest of the year and maybe even put aside for your future (to say nothing of the future potential for stories like, ďOnce during my first job as a Hostess Munchie...Ē).

I know that education is important and, despite my ranting, I know that schools and parents and kids are just doing what's necessary. Still, I can't help but think it kind of sucks and be glad that we had our freedom until after Labour Day when I was a kid. All we had to worry about was dodging the T. Rexes roaming around.